Assessment of the Oil and Gas Potential of the Basement of the Southern Part of the Siberian Platform and Deep-Seated Oil Exploration

Abstract

The main goal is to assess the oil and gas potential of the basement of the southern part of the Siberian Platform as an additional source for the long-term filling of the East Siberia–Pacific Ocean pipeline with hydrocarbons. The initial reserves in the fields, which were discovered in the sedimentary cover on the Siberian Platform, are far below the reserves of the fields of Western Siberia and the Volga Region, where the drilling of deep wells showed the connection of reserves with the basement; the reserves are renewed in a natural way. On the Siberian Platform, the drilling usually ended at the “cover–basement” boundary (at the most productive level). In the wells, there are the following signs that indicate the oil and gas potential of the basement: “black” zircons in granitoids containing radioactive elements, multi-layered oil reservoirs, which are associated with deep faults, and mantle fluids bearing hydrogen and liquid hydrocarbons. Based on the signs listed, which indicate the promising basement rocks, it is necessary to change the existing methods for prospecting and evaluating oil in the sedimentary cover and to focus on the exploration of heavy deep oil in the basement rocks.